Thursday, June 9, 2011

Travel Movies

Whether it's a bicycle trip to the nearest town, or a multi-month tour across continents, travel is a ubiquitous factor in most of the films and it's often enough to inspire us to escape our daily routine and see the world.

Below are the seven travel movies that I recently watched. They are definitely worth seeing if you are nomadic at heart.

A movie about a university graduate who abandons his possessions and wanders all across US to prepare himself to live in the wilderness in Alaska.
The movie is based on a true story. It's one of the most inspiring and complete movies I have ever watched. Great actors, beautiful scenes, very emotional.

A young military officer is sent to Siberia during WWII. Making friends with six others, they escape and walk 4000 miles south to India.
While the scenery is simply amazing and the acting quite decent, some of the characters lack depth. I sometimes got the feeling they were cutting scenes. It's still worth watching if you're into travel movies.

An Austrian mountain climber Heinrich Harrer and several others go on an expedition to climb Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas. Having failed, they return to the camp where they learn that war has been declared on Germany, so they are arrested by British authorities in India. Eventually Harrer and his friend escape and wander around Tibet until they reach Lhasa, where Harrer befriends the 13th Dalai Lama
The real beauty of this film lies in Tibetan people and scenery.

A high school grad Scott Thomas embarks on a overseas trip to Berlin to find the girl he met online. Along for the ride is his best friend Cooper. On the way they run into other friends and together they travel across Europe.
The movie is hilarious but it isn't so much about traveling - moving from one place to another - than it is about exploring and exaggerating every possible European stereotype or cliché.

An Argentinian student Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (later better known as Ernesto Che Guevera) leaves his studies behind to accompany his friend on the journey throughout Latin America.
This movie nicely shows the transition from Che's carefree persona until later becoming more and more inclined to help the people and turning into a man who later changed the world.

The movie is based on a extraordinary true story of a mountain climber Aron Ralston who sets on adventure to the canyons in Utah without telling anyone. As he's exploring the canyons, a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him. He spends the next five days trying to save himself.
It is a quite emotional film with some very realistic scenes. I wouldn't recommend it to the faint-hearted though.

A schoolboy Carl Fredrickson is passionate about traveling and hopes that one day he will visit the Lost Land in South America. He meets a girl Ellie who feels the same, but life gets in their way and they're forced to stay at home. Many years later Ellie dies. Carl remembers the promise he made to her, ties balloons to his house and flies away.
Even though it's animated, the film has everything - hilarious comedy, soul, unusual characters, amazing effects. All those combined make it special.

What travel movies have you recently watched?
Which ones would you recommend?

Up is.. well. You'll have to watch it. :) I was a bit disappointed after the initial 5-10mins. I expected the protagonist to be a little different. But I really liked it once I was past that and accepted the characters for who they were. It's unusual, but in a pleasant way.